The government cannot achieve its target of halving MRSA infections in hospitals by 2008 without breaking its promise to reduce NHS waiting times, a leading authority on hospital acquired infection said yesterday.
Mark Enright, senior research fellow at Bath University, said medical technology was not yet sufficiently advanced to wipe out the superbug in crowded hospitals.
The proven method of combating blood-borne MRSA was isolation of infected patients. But this could not be done without lowering bed occupancy rates and creating some slack in the system.
"In the short term, it is politically unacceptable to increase waiting lists to loosen a system that is running too hot. But we have to give doctors and infection control specialists room to manoeuvre to isolate MRSA patients and keep control of this infection," Dr Enright told a "cleaner hospitals summit" held by the Patients Association in London.
Progress could be made by encouraging NHS staff to wash their hands and improving cleanliness of wards. But these measures would not be enough to achieve the government's target of halving blood-borne infection rates by March 2008.
"In my view that is overambitious," he said. "We don't have the evidence base and we don't have the technologies that are going to work ... The only short-term method is to trace and destroy."
Claire Rayner, president of the Patients Association, said: "Clearly, something has to be done with a problem which kills at least 5,000 people per annum and in which the young and old are most vulnerable."
The actor Leslie Ash told the conference how she contracted MSSA - an MRSA-related infection - last year at the Chelsea and Westminster hospital. She lost all feeling from the waist down.
"I don't think there is a lot of pride in the cleaning of hospitals, and I think there should be. I'm so pleased it is an election issue because finally something might be done about it," she said.
Anna Walker, chief executive of the Healthcare Commission, said it would mount an investigation of hospital-acquired infections in the summer to identify and spread best practice.
The association said the timing of the conference had been fixed long before the election was called. But party health spokesmen seized on reports of the proceedings to influence voters' opinions.
For Labour, the health secretary, John Reid, said a 20% fall in infection rates in London showed it was possible to tackle the MRSA problem.
A Labour spokesman said Dr Enright did not appear to recognise the importance of setting targets as a spur to action, as waiting time targets had shown.
For the Conservatives, the shadow health secretary, Andrew Lansley, said: "The issue, of critical importance to NHS staff and patients, did not even merit one of Labour's 277 commitments for a possible third term."
For the Liberal Democrats, Paul Burstow said: "The problems began under the Conservatives when infection levels rose ... Labour have made things worse by giving political targets a higher priority than cleaning hospitals."
